Machines for manipulating cut tobacco



o. w. MOLINS MACHINES FOR MANIPULATING CUT TOBACCO Filed-Jan. 18. 1956May 6, 1958 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 y 1958 D. w. MOLINS 2,833,290

MACHINES FOR MANIPULATING CUT TOBACCO Filed Jan. 18, 1956 s Sheets-Shet2 pvvavm DESMoun M NouNS 5.) 33% M, Mad Wm TT Rwxs May 6, 1958 2,833,290

D. w. MOLINS MACHINES FOR MANIPULATING cu'r TOBACCO Filed Jan. 18, 19565 Sheets-Sheet 3 '4 I 4 4 E 1 l l L i 2 7 (Y //VVE/V7'O/2 IJEsMoNBW.Nouns Q F15. 7 WmM-M rron/V575 y 6, 1958 D. W. MOLINS 2,833,290

MACHINES FOR MANIPULATING cu'r TOBACCO Filed Jan. 18, 1956 s Sheets-Sheet 4 m l s/w'qfe mESMWD W- MoLlNS 8) W $4, Mvmw ATTOA/Vij y 1953 D.w. MOLINS 2,833,290

MACHINES FOR MANIPULATING CUT TOBACCO Filed Jan. 18, 1956 5 Sheets-Sheet5 Fig .5.

[/VVE/VTQX D mun \J. Moms $21260 Mw 9&2?

United States Patent MACHINES FOR MANIPULATING CUT TOBACCO DesmondWalter Molins, Deptford, London, England,

assignor to Molins Machine Company Limited, London, England, a Britishcompany Application January. 18, 1956, Serial No'. 559,798

Claims priority, application'Great Britain January 28, 1955 Claims. (Cl.131-409) veyor which'carries it as a continuous stream or filler throughor towards devices which manipulate it to form it into a continuoustobacco rod which may eventually be enclosed in a continuous paperwrapper. The best known example of such a machine is the continuous rodcigarette making machine.

Cigarette making machines of the continuous rod type are provided withtobacco feeding apparatus in which a mass of cut tobacco is placed in ahopper and subjected to various brushing and combing operations andfinally showered on to'a conveyor, where it forms a loose tobaccofiller, and by means of which, or by a succeeding conveyor, it is formedinto a tobacco rod or core which is afterwards wrapped in paper.

The aforesaid loose filler and the resulting rod are not as uniform inconsistency as is desirable, and many attempts have been made to improvethe-uniformity of distribution of the tobacco in the final rod. To agreat extent this defective distribution in the tobacco filler is nodoubt due to irregularities in the shower itself, but it is believedthat it is also caused to a considerable extent by events taking placeas the shower contacts with the conveyor on to which it falls. Thisconveyor always moves at a high speed, i. e. at least at a speed equalto a rod speed giving 1000 cigarettes per minute of 70 mm. cigarettelength.

The shower is usually long and narrow in cross-section and the conveyorthat receives the shower is often arranged horizontally so thatconsidered in the direction of movement of the conveyor the tobaccofalls at right angles thereto. It has long been realised that in such anarrangement, when the conveyor moves fast (as in modern high speedcigarette manufacture) a falling tobacco particle striking thefast-moving conveyor tends to rebound and, being unable to change itsmotion instantaneously to that of the conveyor, tends to fall back on tosome part of the conveyor other than that on which it originally fell.This displacement of rebounding tobacco particles lengthwise of theconveyor is itself irregular and thus results in irregular distributionof tobacco along the length of thestream formed on the conveyor. Variousproposals have been made, in an endeavour to overcome this difiiculty,for means to give the falling tobacco a component of movement in thedirection of movement of the conveyor.

In a case such as that just referred to, the falling tobacco particlesare, relatively to the conveyor, moving rearwardly at an acute angle tothe conveyor surface. If the upper surface of the tobacco already on thecondesired direction towards the said fast conveyor.

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Patented May 6, 1958 tend to pile up on or in front of such higherportions while the lower portions will be to some extent shielded by thehigh portions and thus not receive as much tobacco as they otherwisewould. In this way the irregularity already existing (due to irregularbouncing of the tobacco or to any other cause) is aggravated. Even ifthe upper surface of'the tobacco is regular, however, there will almostcertainly be shreds of particles projecting upwardly from the streamabove the general level of the surface, which upstanding shreds willact, in the same way as described above with reference to high portionsof the stream, to cause piling up of the falling tobacco at irregularintervals.

Mention has been made of irregularities in the shower itself. These maybe caused by irregularities in the layer or .carpet of tobacco fromwhich the tobacco showered on to the conveyor is picked. It is believed,however, that they may also in part be present in a case where tobacco,when picked from the carpet, is not thrown downwardly directly towardsthe conveyor but is thrown upwardly, for the purpose of winnowing it,and then drops on to the conveyor after stalk and other heavy particleshave been taken out.

According to the present invention there is provided in a tobaccomanipulating machine (e. g. a cigarette making machine of the continuousrod type) a fast conveyor to receive tobacco and carry it lengthwise asa stream at high speed (c. g. at or above the speed of the cigaretterod) means to discharge tobacco (e. g. from a hopper) in the form of ashower, a slow conveyor arranged to move lengthwise of the shower at aslower speed than that of the said, fast conveyor (e. g. at one thirdthe speed of the fast conveyor) to intercept the showered tobacco, andtransfer means to transfer tobacco from said slow conveyor to said fastconveyor in such manner that the move ment of the tobacco, as it reachesthe said fast conveyor, has a substantial component in the samedirection as the movement of the said fast conveyor. Preferably saidcomponent is so substantial that the tobacco reaching the fast conveyoris moving substantially at the speed of said conveyor.

The said transfer means may comprise picker mechanism to remove tobaccofrom an end of the said slow conveyor and impel it at the desired speedand in the Preferably the said fast conveyor is arranged at a lowerlevel than the said slow conveyor. For example, it may be locatedbeneath the slow conveyor, and may be arranged to run in the reversedirection to that of the slow conveyor. In the latter case, thedirection of the tobacco will of course be reversed when it istransferred from the slow to the fast conveyor.

The transfer means may further comprise a toothed "conveyor, for examplea carded roller, on to which tobacco is fed by the said slow conveyorand from which it as aforesaid on reaching the said fast conveyor.

the fast conveyor. In such a case, means is provided'to The said toothedconveyor may be arranged to move with a surface speed lower than that ofthe said slow' conveyor so that tobacco while being fed on to thetoothed conveyor becomes packed into the teeth of the latter.

The said slow conveyor will of course be much more heavily loaded withtobacco than will the fast conveyor. To avoid forming an inconvenientlydeep stream, the slow conveyor is preferably made considerably widerthan restrict the width of the path through which tobacco passes fromthe slow to the fast conveyor. Preferably such means comprisesconverging guide walls to guide tobacco as it is thrown towards the fastconveyor.

ltwilll be seen that where tobacco is showered on to a surface thatmoves lengthwise of the shower,,the slower that surface moves the lesswill be the displacement of tobacco. particles on it due to slipping andirregular bouncing as discussed above, and the less piling up will occurin front of upstanding tobacco shreds.

Moreover, where the shower itself is irregular (for whatever reason) theslower the surface moves the more likelihood there is of the unevenlyshowered tobacco be coming evenly distributed overthe surface.

Thus'the speed of the slow conveyor is preferably made as low as isreasonably practicable and convenient. This however is limited by theextent to which it is. permissible to load the slow conveyor whileenabling the tobacco to be transferred to the fast conveyor in asatisfactory way.

The slow conveyor may be arranged to slope downwardly in its directionof movement, and in that case it will be seen that vertically fallingtobacco particles will have a component of movement in the direction ofthe conveyor and equal to the speed of the latter, which will furtherreduce the tendency of the falling particles to slip or to reboundirregularly on the slow conveyor.

Apparatus in accordance with the invention will now be described by wayof example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a view looking at the front of a tobacco hopper of acigarette making machine and showing 'the collector conveyor andassociated parts.

Figure 2 is a plan of the collecting conveyor.

Figure 3 is a view of Figure l in the direction A and partly broken awayon the line III--III.

Figure 4 is a diagram of the whole machine showin how the tobaccoreaches the rod forming mechanism.

Figures 5 and 6 show slightly modified constructions.

Figure 7 is a diagram showing a modified arrangement of a conveyor beltshown in Figure 1.

Referring to Figure 1, tobacco is showered down inthe direction of thearrows by devices shown in Figure 3 and falls on a slow conveyorconsisting of a collecting conveyor belt 2. a

In Figure 3, 3-is a combining roller in a hopper 4, and 5 is a pickingroller which picks tobacco from the carding on the roller 3. The pickingoperation takes place i'na concave 6, and the tobacco is forthwiththrown upwards at an angle by a winnower 7. Stalks and other heavypieces are thrown over the upper edge 9D of a wall or shield 9 fixed toa wall 8, and thus separated from the tobacco and collected.

The remaining tobacco partly slides down the shield 9, on to the belt2,whilesome just falls freely on the belt. The shield 9 is canted withrespect, to the belt so that its bottom edge 9A runs obliquely acrossthe belt from one end to the other. That is, thefar end, Figure 3, ofthe shield, corner 9B, is near one side of the belt while the near end,corner 9C, is near the other side of the belt. The disposition of thebottom of the shield is more clearly shown in Figure 2 where the lowerpart thereof is shown in section and the top edge in broken lines. Thusdifferent portions along the length of the shower fall on differentarea-strips of the belt surface. If desired the part of the shield nearthe belt may be bent slightly to convex form.

The belt is about 4" wide whereas the width of the stream formed on thehopper tape of an ordinary cigarette machine is say 1"-1%" wide,assuming that a flat stream is being formed. This means that the belt2-can run at about A to /3 of the speed of a'normal hopper tape andcarry three to four times the tobacco per inch of length. With thissubstantial reduction of speed the disturbing effect of the contactbetween shower and C01- 2i lecting tape is very much reduced. Theshowered tobacco then forms a 4" wide carpet on the belt. The right-handend, Figure 1, of the conveyor is near a toothed or pin roller 10 and tothe left of this is a picker roller 11. Tobacco is pressed into the pinroller by a smooth roller 10A. The pins 11A of the roller 11 are cantedbackwards as considered in the direction of rotation and this helps theroller to pick the tobacco from the pin roller without appreciablebreakage. The peripheral speed of the pin roller may be slightly lessthan the linear speed of the belt 2 so that there is a certain amount ofpacking action in the transfer of tobacco from belt to pin roller. Aconcave 12 surrounds the right-hand side of the pin roller and tobacco.is picked at the edge 12A of the concave in the usual way. The pickedtobacco is thrown down a chute 13 on to a final conveyor 14. Thisconveyor, see Figure 3 is 1%" wide so its speed will be 3.2 times thatof the belt 2. Because it is narrow relatively to the belt 2, the chute'13 has converging side walls, see Figure 3. The picker roller runs at ahigher speed and the tobacco is flung down the chute at a very highlinear speed. It will be noted that the path of the shreds is at anangle (in the construction shown, 64)

to the conveyor surface and the speed of the shreds should preferably besuch that if it is resolved into components parallel to the conveyor andat right angles thereto, the parallel component is substantially equalto the conveyor speed, so that there is no material tendency to slip onthe conveyor, and particles which rebound will tend to return to thespot first struck. Further, any tendency for piling up in front ofupstanding tobacco shreds is materially reduced. In this way transfer tothe second conveyor is effected with a minimum of disturbance.

The conveyor 14 is shown sloping upwards in the direction of itsmovement, see Figure l, but this is merely incidental to the particularmachine shown, for, as will be seen from Figure 4, the conveyor 14 hasto raise the tobacco to a position where it can pass into a smoothpassage 15, of the kind described in United States Patent No. 2,671,452,issued March 9, 1954, to D. W. Molins and F. F. Ruau. At. the bottom ofthe passage is a paper web 16 which carries thefiller through the rodforming, sealing, and cutting devices of the kind commonly used oncontinuous rod cigarette-making machines.

In Figure 5 the slow conveyor is marked 20 and a presser roller 21presses the tobacco into a carded or pin roller 22 having a concaveshield 23. The picker roller 24 beneath .the carded roller picks thetobacco therefrom and carries it around a concave 25 to discharge it onto a belt 26 with a substantial component of movement in thedirection oftravel of the belt 26.

In Figure 6 the slow conveyor 30 feeds the tobacco to a pin roller 31from which it is removed by a picker roller 32 which picks the tobaccoagainst the edge of a short concave 33, the latter merging into astraight guide 34 The concave 33 is pivoted at 35 and the angle of theguide 34 can thus be adjusted, for example, the guide can be moved tothe broken line position. The picked tobacco is discharged down the faceof the guide near to the picker roller and reaches a belt 36 with acomponent of movement in the direction of movement of the belt,

which in this case is shown curling up in the manner customary with acigarette tape as it enters the rod-forming devices. I e

In Figure 7, the conveyor belt 2, previously shown in Figure 1 ashorizontal, is shown sloping downward in the direction of its movement.In this way the falling tobacco has a component of movement in thedirection of movement of the conveyor and this helps to reduce thetendency of the falling particles to slip or rebound irregularly onreaching the belt 2.

What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. A tobacco manipulating machine comprising a fast conveyor to receivetobacco and carry it lengthwise as a stream at high speed, means todischarge said tobacco in the form of a shower Whose horizontalcross-section is elongated in one direction, a slow conveyor arranged tomove transversely of the shower in the direction of its elongation at aslower speed than that of the said fast conveyor to intercept theshowered tobacco, and transfer means to transfer tobacco from said slowconveyor to said fast conveyor in such manner that the movement of thetobacco, as it reaches the said fast conveyor, has a substantialcomponent in the same direction as the movement of the said fastconveyor.

2. A machine as claimed in claim 1 wherein the transfer means isarranged to give the transferred tobacco a component so substantial thatthe tobacco reaching the fast conveyor is moving in the same directionand substantially at the speed of said conveyor.

3. A machine as claimed in claim 1 wherein the transfer means comprisespicker mechanism to remove tobacco from an end of the said slow conveyorand impel it at the desired speed and in the desired direction towardsthe said fast conveyor.

4. A machine as claimed in claim 1 wherein the fast conveyor is arrangedat a lower level than the said slow conveyor.

5. A machine as claimed in claim 4 wherein the transfer means comprisesa toothed conveyor on to which tobacco is fed by the said slow conveyorand from which it is picked and thrown down on to the said fast conveyorin such a direction and at such a speed as to give the tobacco particlesthe desired component of movement on reaching the said fast conveyor.

6. A machine as claimed in claim 5, wherein the toothed conveyor isarranged to move with a surface speed lower than that of the said slowconveyor so that tobacco while being fed on to the toothed conveyorbecomes packed into the teeth of the latter.

7. A machine as claimed in claim 1 wherein the slow conveyor is at leasttwice the width of the fast conveyor and means is provided to reduce thewidth of the tobacco during transfer so that the wide stream on thefirst said conveyor is reduced to the width of the second saidconvey-or.

8. A machine as claimed in claim 1 wherein the slow conveyor is arrangedto slope downwardly in the direction of its movement to reduce thetendency of the falling particles of tobacco to slip or reboundirregularly on said conveyor.

9. A machine as claimed in claim 1 comprising a winnower for throwingtobacco upwards and towards the slow conveyor to cause it to fall as ashower thereon and a wall for segregating heavy particles which arethrown further than the rest of the projected tobacco, said wall havingits upper edge substantially parallel to the direction of movement ofthe slow conveyor and its lower edge canted across the width of saidconveyor so that the width on to which the shower may fall increasesgradually to a maximum at the delivery end.

10. A machine as claimed in claim 5 wherein tobacco picked from thetoothed conveyor is guided by a wall in its movement toward the fastconveyor the angle of inclination of said wall to the fast conveyorbeing such that the desired component is secured by the combination ofthe picking speed, disposition of the picker, and the angularity of saidwall.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS1,876,012 Leary Sept. 6, 1932 2,224,294 Herrmann Dec. 10, 1940 FOREIGNPATENTS 1,246 Great Britain 1908 324,403 Great Britain Jan. 27, 1930324,930 Great Britain Feb. 5, 1930 366,046 Great Britain Mar. 12, 1932713,835 Great Britain Aug. 18, 1954

